In 1995 Charlene Semkin gave DCC 10 semen straws of her young bull Superman by Overwhelmer. A yearling DCC cow named Bouncer Blend by Bouncer out of a King daughter was AI bred and gave birth to a wild colored bull calf 3-29-1996. This calf weighed 66 lbs at birth, which was large for this breed. He was registered as Super Bounce.
In October of 1996 he was a flashy pinto bull, at that time priced pretty high at $1400. J.H. Barnhouse of Blue Rock, way down in the backwoods of Muskingum County, Ohio, bought him. I recall he had a rusty pickup with stock racks that had seen many hard times.
In 1999 Mr Barnhouse called and said Super Bounce measured 70" tip to tip. He has been reading some Longhorn magazines and felt he was the widest horned bull in the industry. He would sell him--what would I give? Later I found he had called people all over including my friend Bill Farson who also raised Longhorns. Once he called Eddie Wood about consigning him to a big Texas sale. Eddie didn't believe the 70" story and recommended he take him to a local auction.
With about the same confidence as Eddie Wood I told Barnhouse I would come look at him and measure his horns. He was on a muddy hill with an old rotten log corral and a few crossbred cows in a thick grove of trees. He was dog-gentle. We squeezed him behind some logs and sure enough he was a full 70." At that time that was the widest measured bull. Barnhouse asked what would I give for him? I normally expect a seller to set a price and the buyer can say yes or no, but Barnhard wanted to dicker for days. He never stated a price he would sell for. It was a stall.
About 6 months later Barnhouse called and said he was ready to price Super Bounce. I went to see him again. He was in an old barn. We set on hay bales and he never priced the bull. He wanted me to make an offer then I knew exactly what he would do--reject the offer, and ask more. This old fellow wanted to squeeze every penny out of the bull.
Months later, Bill Farson called and said Barnhouse told him to bring a trailer, he was ready to sell. It was Sunday morning. Bill came by DCC on the way to try and buy Super Bounce. I gave Bill $5000 in green and he drover away. I sent a registration transfer for the seller to sign and Bill was to not leave without a signed transfer and the registration certificate.
I don't recall the sermon, but in a Baptist church I remember there was an offering plate that went by. When we got home from church, in the front stall of the DCC bull barn here was this beautiful bull--Super Bounce. An envelope had the signed transfer and ITLA registration certificate. It was done.
He collected semen in volumes. It was priced at $35 and more semen sold for more dollars than any other bull in 2002. His calves were consistently good conformation similar to Overwhelmer and wild colored pinto splashes. He was the bull of the day.
Red McCombs wanted Super Bounce and bought a half interest for $30,000. He also bought Uncurled by Unlimited who was bred to Super Bounce and she gave birth to Touchdown of RM, the grand sire of 3S Danica. Unlike the record, DCC was the breeder of Touchdown of RM.
I don't like partnerships because most fail, but McCombs--I had to chance it. When partnering, with a brilliant business person it is hard for me to argue about the business plan. Red had 2 ideas. One was to change his name to Super Bowl, and that was good. The other was a bad idea to raise the semen price to $100 per straw. It was too early to sell $100 semen, so semen sales went to almost nothing. In partner- ships normally one partner does the work and another splits the profits. Partnerships often end poorly, no matter how good they look at first.
Red was excited about Super Bowl. But his farm manager was not. Red had bought Super Bowl and it was not the farm manager's idea. About 2 months after moving Super Bowl to Johnson City, McCombs Ranch, Red went to the ranch and found Super Bowl with about 10 of his lowest value cows and all the best cows were with bulls the farm manager had bought. Red was furious. He instructed his cowhands to take all the bulls out except Super Bowl and give Super Bowl the whole cow herd.
The bull partnership thing has several downsides. When a bull goes from herd to herd they never get a time to rest up and recover. Also the more herds canoodled, the more the chance of some infectous disease. And, Super Bowl always came back to Ohio poor as a west Texas Chaparral. I don't think Red knew about a lot of this stuff as his vast multi billion dollar enterprises kept him spread very thin. We ended the partnership with Red buying the other half on 10-15-2005.
The bright light--on 4-18-2006, a little spotted heifer was born by Super Bowl who was named Super Silent. She was bred to Drag Iron and on 5-5-2013 a heifer named Silent Iron was born...the rest is history.
